eyelet button hole

I have been learning how to make an eyelet button hole to go on the sewn armour I made for my son to use while he does rapier . I wanted to keep the jacket fairly authentic, even though sewing is not what I am good at . The jacket will have ties to fasten it, not buttons. This first hole was too small to let the cord through so I made larger ones and they seem to be working well, so far.

five finger loop weaving

What to do on a quiet weekend. WEll at our house we learn how to do the five loop viking finger  weaving. Now that I am working on the Viking tunic for my son to wear at the  medieval society he thought he would like a belt for it so we had a go at finger braiding. This is similar to other braiding I have done except that you keep a loop at the end of the yarn and use you finger to pull threads through these loops to create the braid. We started off by using my hand spun but I think it was a little hard to separate and keep then tension tight. We later tried commercial yarn and this was a lot easier to use, but not authentic for the viking period of course. It was lots of fun and I want to try some more.

 

 

 

 

 

Viking tunic

 

It is always the best feeling when you finally get to cut your weaving off.

It feels like the weaving of this Viking tunic took forever but I think that is only because the research into creating an authentic replica tunic form the viking era took such a long time and then of course the winding on and threading up of the 5 metre warp did take a while to do. BUT here we are all done and even with a nice grey band running down it. Next is the cutting out and then the sewing up. I  have been researching the traditional seams from this period but I am a little nervous about the material fraying at the edges if the seam is not done well enough.

 

 

 

 

 

 

sun dye workshop

I went to a workshop on using sun dyes. Lisa Febey showed us what sun dyes were and how they can be used. Everyone fell in love with Lisa's beautiful work. She guided us beginners through the process and explained the ways in which we could turn a plain piece of cloth into a wonder to behold. Everyone rushed off to their work and dyes were painted, resists and plant pieces were placed over the material and then we let the sun do its magic. Anyone wanting some more info on sun dyes you can go to Lisa Waltons blog dyed and gone to heaven . She is such an inspiration when it comes to all things fabric related.
Nandroya studios was such a great space for our day of fun that I have to say a special thankyou to Joy for the use of her space nestled amongst their vineyard.   Stay tuned for my results in the next post.

shaving foam marbling

I did a mini workshop on shaving cream marbling. Pauline, one of the Guilds very talented and gifted members showed some of us at Judbury how to create a marbled affect on fabric by using shaving cream instead of water to hold the dyes. It was so much fun and so easy to do. There was very little mess and you can get a number of prints off a tray of cream.

dry point etching workshop

I have just done a four day workshop in dry point etching. The tutor was Deb Wace, a Tasmanian artist. Since I have not really done any printing before the whole workshop was exciting and new to me. I loved the process of scratching out the image onto acertate and then inking up and finally using the press to get the final print. I must admit that I did find it a bit messy, but that may have been me not being as carefull as I should have been.
Deb was a great teacher and very inspiring and she even entertained us with her fantastic singing voice.
Here are some of my pieces. I was happy for a first attempt and like the  double image ( a drawing of my daughter when she was about 2).

tassie felters

A new felting group called Tassie felters has started up in Battery Point and I went along for the first meeting of 2015.
The topic was felt samples so we all watched a great demo by Jacqueline on how to make a felt sample then we were let loose on our wool. Everyone had lots of fun and created such diverse pieces.
Thanks Jacqueline for a great mornings work.